


Talk Too Much

by ACR



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2019-09-07
Packaged: 2020-10-12 04:01:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20557895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ACR/pseuds/ACR
Summary: Post IT Chapter Two - AU where Eddie also survives killing Pennywise. Some very sweet adult Reddie content, since I'm sure we all just need that right now. :(-The remaining six Losers have survived the final face off with Pennywise. Now life can go back to normal... Or can it? Certainly it can't for Richie, who has been forced to come to terms with his greatest fear and most difficult truth; that he's gay, and deeply in love with his long time best friend Eddie.





	1. A Shimmering Balance Act

Richie couldn’t describe what it felt like to be in the deadlights. He knew reasonably that it was only a few seconds, but he saw so many things in those lights he couldn’t begin to comprehend or sort through them. So, when it stopped, and he fell like a rag doll onto the hard rocks below, to say that he was shaken was an understatement.

And then Eddie was there, over him, smiling like a storm and talking to him. At first, he couldn’t understand it. And then all at once, he did, “I did it Richie! I killed Pennywise!”

Richie stared at him, confused and bewildered, but he remembered something he saw in the deadlights. This scene, another life, Eddie killed. Pierced straight through the chest. No way that fucking clown was dead. He grabbed Eddie so quickly, pulling him into his arms, and rolled out of the way just in time to miss the scorpion tail that thrashed into the rocks where they had just been, cracking the stone.

The rest was a blur. Pennywise’s horrific, mocking laughter, everyone shrieking. They ran, scattered again. Eddie, terrified at the fact he had just nearly been killed, suddenly remembered how he had almost defeated Pennywise before, as the leper. It felt like a stupid idea, but the only idea they had. To make the clown small. And Richie couldn’t pretend he didn’t enjoy every second of it, bullying that motherfucker into submission. Running to escape the collapsing cavern, and Neibolt house, he didn’t enjoy quite as much.

Later, sitting in the cold quarry water, with the sun shining down on them, he could have broken down into tears out of sheer relief. He could see it in the others faces too, waiting as if this was all a trick, like any second they would be back in that god forsaken cavern. But Richie knew it was over; he had seen it, in the deadlights. It came back to him, briefly and in flashes, different possibilities and scenes he couldn’t understand or parse together. He kept glancing at Eddie, the most vivid moment in his mind the sight of Eddie’s dead body. It hadn’t happened, he had stopped it, though just barely. Still, he had been so close to death. He couldn’t shake that feeling, grief that he couldn’t ever put into words that they had been only inches from. It put everything else into a sharp kind of perspective.

“Guys,” He said suddenly, breaking the silence, “I need to tell you something.”

The group all looked at him expectantly. He couldn’t pretend it wasn’t a bit silly, a bunch of adults sitting together in the shallow water, just like when they were kids. He looked around at them and knew that he owed it to them to say it. They had taken this journey together, they had faced fear itself and come out into the sunshine and survived. He could see in their faces that they had overcome some of their most personal barriers, a kind of exhaustion and yet, peace, settling now in their faces.

Didn’t he deserve that too? He struggled with the words. He had never said them out loud, only thought them a handful of times before coming back to Derry. They had played themselves over and over more times since coming back here than they had any other time for the last twenty-seven years. He knew it somewhere deep down, he always had, but never faced it. He buried it with these memories, repressed them to save himself. His greatest fear, not clowns or spiders or fucking Paul Bunyan. Pennywise had known it, tormented him with it. He looked at the others, waiting patiently for him to spit it out. Ironic that he was always talking, but now couldn’t speak. He looked at Eddie, staring at him with a gaunt and bruised face. Finally, he had to look at Bev when he said it. He thought she was the only person he could face with the truth, who certainly wouldn’t judge.

“I’m gay,” He said, finally.

Bev’s eyes widened, but she nodded slowly. In his peripheral vision he saw Mike and Bill exchanged a look. He didn’t dare look at Eddie to gauge his reaction.

Ben was the first to speak, “Sure, we knew that.” The others shot him a weird look and he threw up his hands in defense, “Jesus, okay. Well, I knew that. I thought it was like, common knowledge, sorry. I feel like I have definitely known that since we were kids, though.”

Despite himself, Richie laughed at this. It was such a Ben thing to say, to have known all this time and never mentioned it or pointed it out, that it tickled him. The others smiled too, and laughed along with him. Relief came again like a wave, and he realized that he probably had made it a much bigger deal than necessary. They had been through so much together, this couldn’t harm their relationship. They smiled and nodded at him in a way that said, 'we still love you, Richie'. Only Eddie, though smiling, still looked a little shocked and concerned by this news. It unnerved Richie, but he tried to ignore it. It didn’t matter.

He had said it. He could say it.

\--

They got back to the Inn in the afternoon, and Richie crashed like he had never crashed before. He slept hard and deep, completely exhausted from hours and hours spent in fear, running, and trying to survive. Visions from the deadlights flashed through his dreams, but he was too tired to sort through any of them. Eventually, he landed on a comforting and recently remembered memory to dream about instead.

It was a late night, maybe five days after the group had fractured. Richie couldn’t sleep and had sneaked out of his room, something that had been all too easy to do when he was a kid because his parents didn’t pay very much attention to him. He crossed the silent sleepy street and walked the two blocks to Eddie’s house. He had been scared the whole time, knowing it was dangerous to walk alone at night with Pennywise still out there, but he hadn’t seen heads or tails of him since the incident with Paul Bunyan a few days earlier. Either way, he had been going restless alone at his house over the hot summer days. He needed to talk to someone or he was gonna go crazy.

He peeked through the living room window, saw Eddie’s mom in her usual medicated sleep on the chair in front of the TV, playing reruns of a gameshow. He had snuck here enough times to know she would be hard pressed to wake up out of this slumber. At times, he had braved past her to the kitchen to steal food and made quite a racket (to Eddie’s horror), but whatever medications she took to sleep knocked her straight out for ten hours.

He went around the back of the house, jumped the fence like he had dozens of times, and went to Eddie’s bedroom window. The curtains were drawn shut, but he rapped his fingers against the glass twice anyway. After a few seconds with no answer, he rapped harder. A lamp light flickered on and after a few seconds, Eddie pulled open the curtains. He was in his pajamas, his arm wrapped in a cast. The sight of it took Richie straight back to Neibolt house, and his heart wrenched at the memory.

Eddie scowled at him and flipped him off with his good hand, shaking the bad thoughts away.

Richie motioned towards him to open the window, which Eddie responded to by pointing at four brand new big shiny nails drilled into the window pane, nailing it shut. Richie frowned. He made a big motion with his hands to try to explain that he could let him in through the front door, because his mom was out cold.

Eddie sighed visibly and grabbed a notepad from his desk. He scribbled something down before pressing it to the dirty window for Richie to read. It said;

'My mom put a lock on my door. I can’t get out of here until she unlocks it from the other side.'

“Fuck,” Richie said out loud. He made a motion like shooting his brains out. Eddie rolled his eyes and waved goodbye, before closing the curtains.

He crossed his arms and thought. The front and back doors were certainly locked as well, but maybe one of the other windows could be opened. Eds typically had to open his from the other side so that Richie could climb in, but the windows were old, didn’t latch from the inside. He walked around the yard until he found a stick that had a flattened end to it. He found a window on the other side of the house that had big, pink curtains on it. It had to have been Eddie’s moms room, though Richie had never been there. He worked the stick against the underside of the window until he pried it open from the bottom and could fit his fingers in the gap. It took all of his strength, but he pulled it open.

He crawled into the room and was hit by a wave of bad smells. Eddie’s moms bedroom was full of boxes and various piles of assorted stuff, from floor to ceiling. Richie knocked over a pile of magazines trying to get through the window, and fumbled to the ground with a loud thump. Her bed was covered in shit too, it no wonder she slept in the living room. He made a face of disgust and spent five straight minutes trying to navigate his way through the boxes and trash. Finally, he made it to the door and opened it very slowly and quietly. Beyond was the hallway, and he could hear faintly the sound of the TV from the living room where she was unconscious.

He smirked and went into the hallway, clicking the door shut quietly. He made his way to Eddie’s room, and sure enough, a heavy duty chain lock was now fastening it shut. He had to stand on tip-toes to reach it, but unlocked it fairly easily and pushed the door open.

Eddie was sitting on his bed, and swiveled around suddenly to look at him. Anger flashed over his face briefly before he turned away quickly.

“Jesus Richie,” He growled under his breath, “Can’t you fucking take no for an answer? How’d you get in here?”

“Your mom gave me a key so I could come fuck her whenever,” Richie said, closing the door with a smile. He moved over to Eddie and realized suddenly that Eds was wiping tears from his eyes. His smile faded from his mouth and he wished he hadn’t made the joke.

“You’re suck a dick,” Eddie hissed, “If she finds you here she’s gonna kill us both.”

Richie sat on the bed and looked at him with concern, “Are you, uh... okay?”

“No, motherfucker! She’s got me locked up in here all day, every day, because of this!” He lifted his casted arm too fast and winced, “I was only allowed to leave to pick up my inhaler, and as soon as I did, that fucking clown tricked me and attacked me!”

More tears now, but Eds looked more angry than sad. Richie was silent for once, not sure what to say. He came here because he wanted to tell Eddie about his own attack, but now seemed like a really bad time for that. Instead he crawled past him and laid down on the bed, looking up at the glowing stars on the ceiling. After a few seconds, Eddie laid back next to him and they looked at it together.

They had done this a dozen times, laid here in silence or mocking each other lightly. Every time, Richie had had to fight off the urge to take Eddies hand, a gesture he didn’t understand. Now, more than ever, he had a hard time fighting it, especially as he felt Eddie’s good arm pressed against him.It was a tight fit on the tiny bed.

“Sorry,” Richie said finally, “About your arm. If it makes you feel better, I got into a fight with Bill about it.”

Eddie was silent for a second, taking that in. “You did?”

“Yeah. I punched him,” Richie lied. Really, Bill had punched him extremely hard. It was difficult to feign proud of it. In the heat of the moment, with fear clutching at him, Richie had said a lot of things he didn’t mean to Bill about Georgie. He had been stewing in guilt about it for nearly a week, but he couldn’t admit that to Eds. He had just been so fucking angry, so terrified. Not for himself, as much as he was scared for Eddie. There had been a moment where Pennywise was coming at them, when Richie had clutched Eds face and made him look at him, tried to get him to pay attention and not be scared. Now, that moment embarrassed him.

A long silence came between them. Richie was hyper aware of every part of them that was touching; their upper arms down to their elbows, their hips, the sides of their thighs. His heart was racing, as it often did here. He couldn’t adjust to it, no matter how much it happened. He thought about the arcade, Henry Bowers and his cousin. Fag. He had cried hard about that twice since, and he wasn’t sure why. He had been called a hundred bad names by those fuckers, but nothing had cut so deep. Now here, with Eddie, he think he understood why. When he heard hard breathing, for a second, he thought it was him. He turned his head to look at Eddie, who was on the verge of hyperventilating but not there yet, staring hard at the ceiling with tears in his eyes.

“We’re gonna fucking die,” Eddie whispered. It wasn’t a question, a fact.“It won’t leave us alone until we’re fucking dead.”

Richie gulped, his throat dry. He wanted to argue, but he had been thinking the same thing. It was why he couldn’t sleep. He wanted to tell Eds that he wouldn’t let that happen, that he would die before he let something happen to the other boy, but he couldn’t find the words.

Eddie moved and suddenly he was lacing their fingers together. Richie froze, his heart tripling in pace as Eddie squeezed his hand and started crying.

“I’m sorry,” He wept, turning so that he was burying his head in Richie’s shoulder, “I’m just so scared, Richie. Fuck.”

\--

Richie was awoken from the dream by the sound of light knocking from somewhere. He was breathing hard as he blinked awake, staring into the dark of his room. He sat up and looked around. The glowing alarm clock said it was a little after five in the morning. He had slept almost fifteen hours, and was surprised by the fact that his body was fighting him for even more rest. He had taken off his filthy clothes, but slept with his cracked glasses on for some reason.

He was rubbing his eyes and trying to piece together the memory-dream when there was another knock at the door, and he realized that it had been what had woken him in the first place. He stood up and walked to the door, wrenching it open. Eddie was on the other side, wearing matching pajama pants and button up shirt. Richie was surprised to see him, but tried to pretend that he wasn’t.

“The fuck are you wearing?” He croaked, sleep still heavy in his voice, “You look like Ebenezer Scrooge. You just need a sleeping cap and a little plate with a candle.”

Eddie narrowed his eyes, “You’re fucking relentless, did you know that? It’s too early for the jokes.”

Richie shrugged, and noticed Eddie glancing down at his body. Richie followed his gaze and realized he was only in baggy, filthy boxers and one single mid-calf black sock. He snorted and rolled his eyes, walking away from the door but leaving it open in invitation. He walked over to his open suitcase and started digging for clean clothes.

“I haven’t even showered yet,” He said to Eddie, who walked in and shut the door behind him, “I went right to sleep, I was so fucking tired.”

Eddie sat on the end of the bed, “Yeah, I think everyone else is still sleeping too. I just woke up myself.”

“Why are you here?” Richie tried to sound cool, not let it seem like he was actually kind of elated to see Eddie here, alone in his hotel room.

“I’m starving. I was wondering if you were up, maybe wanted to go get breakfast. No one else answered their doors.”

Richie touched his stomach. He WAS starving. He hadn’t had any food in well over twenty four hours now, and it had been difficult in the days before that to stomach anything with all of the fear, but now it was all hitting him. He gestured to the door on the other side of the room, “Can I shower first?”

Eddie, who was clean himself with new bandages on his cheek, frowned and looked him over again, “Please do.”

Richie smiled and pulled off his one sock, caked in mud to the point that it was stiff, and threw it at Eddie, who made a horrified face as he batted it out of the air away from him.

“Gross, Richie!” Eddie exclaimed. He smirked and retreated across the room to the attached bathroom.

The warm water of the shower washed the sleep from his head, and an impressive amount of dirt and blood out of his hair and body. In good lighting, no longer covered in dirt, Richie realized exactly why he was so tired; he was completely covered in bruises. When he stepped out of the shower and wiped the mirror, he grimaced at himself. His back was the worst, probably from falling on the rocks. Dark purple bruising encompassed almost every part of it, from his shoulder blades to his hips, as well as a scattering of other bruises and small cuts on his chest, cheek, arms, and legs in a wide spectrum of colors from light yellow, bloody red, to near black. He winced as he pulled on boxers and pants, and figured it might be a good idea to have Eddie check him to see if he had any broken ribs, which was starting to look like a real possibility.

He cracked the door open, still looking at himself in the mirror, “Eds?”

“Hmm?” Eddie replied.

“Can you come here? I think I might have really fucked myself up.”

Eds must have left while Richie was showering to get dressed, because now he was wearing some nice and cleanly starched clothing. His eyes widened when he saw Richie’s back and chest.

“Jesus,” He said, moving closer, “I didn’t even see this in the dark room. That looks fucking brutal.”

Richie raised his arms up to get a better look at his torso and moved towards Eddie, “Does it look like anything is broken?”

“How the fuck am I supposed to know?”

“Touch it!” Richie hissed, “I can’t reach back there. Just… Poke around and see if it feels like anything is obviously broken.”

“I’m not…” Eddies voice trailed off. In the mirror, Richie saw him glance nervously at his back and then away, hesitation on his face. Richie felt some annoyance in himself and found his mouth moving before he could stop it.

“I’m not trying to seduce you with my incredible bruising, asshole,” He said with liquid sarcasm.

Eddie blushed and his eyebrows pushed together, “I’m not worried about that, dickhead! I’m worried if I touch you I’ll make it worse!”

Richie blushed too, “Well, don’t be shy! Just help me!”

Eds made a noise in his throat in annoyance and resignation before moving in on his back. Carefully, he brought his hands up and touched at Richies bruises. He tried to keep his wincing to a minimum as Eddie poked along his spine and down each rib, tracing them under his arms and around his chest. Richie worked on steadying his breathing and gritting his teeth through the pain, finally deciding to just focus on his friends face in the mirror. Eddie’s eyebrows eventually un-knit and he had a look of focus on him as he examined him with a medical carefulness that surprised him.

After a few moments, Richie’s brain had overloaded the pain and replaced it with nerves as he realized Eddie was really touching him, both hands all over him in a way that would have been sinful in any other context. He had crushed on Eds when they were kids, hardcore crushed on him in a way that made his heart slam at every small touch. The dreamlike memory had made that very clear to him. But that was twenty-seven years ago, and even though seeing him had brought it all flooding back, until this very moment he had been able to convince himself that it was just nostalgia, and he didn’t feel that way about Eddie anymore.

Finally, Eddie was in front of him, examining his collarbone which was probably unnecessary, since there wasn’t much bruising there. He looked up at Richie’s face and found him staring, and pulled his hands away quickly as well as his eyes, his face flushed red again as he started to speak.

“Nothing seems broken. Fractured, maybe, but that would be hard for me to tell. You should be fine for now, we’ll just keep an eye on it.”

“Thanks,” Richie said, unable to stop looking at him. He realized suddenly, that Eddie was extremely nervous, but not in the way he had anticipated, some homophobic distrust on Richie’s intentions. He was nervous in a way that Richie had seen before, in women who had tried unsuccessfully to seduce him in the past. The thought hit him like a bolt of lightning, sending electricity down his limbs.

“I don’t care that you’re gay, you know,” Eddie said suddenly, taking a step back and glancing around the room, anywhere but Richie, “It’s 2019, and I live in New York for fucks sake. I have friends that are gay, it doesn’t like, freak me out. You’re still Trashmouth Richie, same dumbass kid from the old days, what do I care if you’re gay?”

“Yeah, what do you care.” Richie smiled despite himself, still looking at Eddie. His brown eyes were beautiful. He was beautiful, Richie realized. Richie himself struggled with middle-aged fat that came and went, though he had looked good lately just from being constantly on the move with his comedy tour. Eds still had the same kind of body he had throughout childhood, thin a wiry, but muscular in surprising places. He could see it through his shirt.

Eds met his gaze and his cheeks got even redder, if it was possible, and he looked away again. He reached for Richie’s shirt sitting folded on the sink and handed it to him, not looking at him, “Ya know, I tried it myself, back in college. Everyone experiments in college.”

“Yeah?” Richie stepped forward and took the shirt, purposefully getting into Eddie’s personal space, which sent the other man into even more blubbering.

“But it wasn’t for me! I like chicks, through and through. Always been a guy who likes tits, and pussy. Never enjoyed the anal part of things, though I was drunk a lot of the time and it was kinda just painful. Maybe didn’t use enough lube. Also barely knew those guys, so I dunno, maybe if there had been a connection I would have-”

Richie grabbed his wrist to get him to stop talking, and pulled him close to him. Eds eyes widened as Richie brought his face down and kissed him.

Eddie gasped into his mouth, frozen only for a second before diving headlong into kissing him back. Richie put the hand that wasn’t clutching Eddie’s wrist behind his head, and raked his fingers through his hair brown hair. Eddie put one hand gently on his chest and trailed the other up to cup his cheek. Richie kissed him so hard he gave up on oxygen, for a moment. He had kissed people before; girls countless times trying to feel something that would never be there. This was different, and he was nervous, so he took his time and tried to be gentle, remembering that Eddie had been stabbed in the mouth like two days ago. It felt incredible, even as the pain from his bruising throbbed over his body.

After who knows how long, Eddie pushed against his chest and pulled away, gasping for breath, his eyes wide and staring with fear at Richie. He understood that fear, he had felt it himself less than a day ago. The fear of the truth, the fear of admitting it to yourself let alone other people.

“I’m married,” Eds said quietly, finally, still staring into his lips. Richie rolled his eyes and let go of his grip on Eddie’s hair and wrist.

“Right,” He growled, “To some woman you can’t stand and haven’t said one damn nice thing about since you got here.”

Eddie balked for a moment in surprise before frowning and babbling defensively, “Th-that’s not true! She’s my wife, I married her, of course I love her.”

Richie knelt down and picked up the shirt he had dropped in lieu of taking hold of Eddie, regret clutching at his stomach. Truth was, no matter what, Eddie WAS married and it was a dick move to kiss him. He didn’t know what had come over him, and he avoided looking at him now for fear it would make it worse. Anger boiled alongside the regret in his stomach, too, though. Why had Eddie come here, just to lead him on and make him feel bad when it was over? He pulled the shirt on as he marched solemnly out of the bathroom. He heard Eddie following him.

“I- I’m sorry Richie, if I led you on, I just-” He stuttered over himself, “I just, I guess… When we were kids-”

Richie walked right to the door that led to the hallway and opened it, before standing out of the way. Eddie’s mouth clicked closed and he stared at him in disbelief and confusion.

“On second thought, I’m not hungry,” Richie said sharply, meeting his gaze and gesturing at the door. Eddie’s mouth became a thin line and he glanced down at the floor. He looked like he wanted to say something else, anything, and Richie almost hoped he would. Finally, though, Eds just left.

Richie closed the door behind him, a lot louder than he meant it, and leaned against it.

Fuck.


	2. Opportunity you Can't Afford to Waste

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Six months after killing Pennywise and an extremely uncomfortable kiss with Eddie, Richie has to see him again.

It had been six months since the last and final altercation with Pennywise, and every morning that Richie woke up still able to remember anything surprised him. On one hand, there were a lot of good memories that he dwelt on and daydreamed about. On the other, when he woke up in the night screaming from nightmares of clowns and Stanley’s fucking head-spider, he wished deeply that he could forget at least part of it.

More than anything, he wanted to forget the kiss with Eddie and ensure that Eddie had forgotten the kiss as well. They hadn’t spoken since, and Richie, still angry, had packed up his things and left Derry without so much as a goodbye to the others that he later deeply regretted. However, he had talked to the other since then, who didn’t ask much about his sudden leaving. They seemed to, on some level, understand.

Richie, needing a fresh start now that he was coming to terms with himself, sold his Las Vegas house and moved to New York City, New York, something he had always wanted to do. Something about the state seemed to have pull on all of the Losers in general. Ben lived in Connecticut, but had a lot of ongoing building projects in New York City, so he and Beverly were around a lot, and they met up with Richie for lunch often. Bill’s permanent home was in upstate New York, and though at first he had been in LA a lot for the filming of the movie, now that he was in the middle of a divorce he spent a lot of time there and invited Richie over a lot for the weekend to stave off the loneliness. Mike had initially moved to Florida from his long-time home in Derry, but after experiencing approximately one hurricane, decided it wasn’t for him and moved in to Bill’s spare room at his first offer.

Richie also knew, of course, that Eddie lived in the city as well, and that the other Losers saw him often, but so far they had both avoided seeing each other or attending invitations to outings at the same time. If Richie knew Eddie was invited, he would politely decline and he knew that there had been a few occasions where Eddie hadn’t showed up despite being invited when Richie was going to be there, too. There was an unspoken agreement that it would be best not to see each other, not yet.

He knew that he should be an adult about this. For fucks sake, it was just a kiss. It wasn’t like they had boned and Richie had dipped out. If anything, Eddie should be avoiding him and not vice versa, since he antagonized a kiss he wasn’t prepared for and pissed Richie off. But it stung, a lot, mainly because it was the first time Richie had ever had the balls to kiss another man, and it had been Eddie of all people, who he had loved since childhood.

Alright, so it stung a lot.

On the bright side, since moving to New York and coming to terms with being gay, Richie’s love life had been explosive. He had kissed a dozen men since kissing Eds, and even hooked up with three guys after a few dates and plenty of glasses of wine. One of the said hook-ups had been a twenty-six year old who wouldn’t shut up about his obsession with ‘gross old men’. That had perhaps been Richie’s lowest moment, certainly, but he still felt weirdly proud of the conquest. In middle age, dating women had been difficult if not impossible to the point he hadn’t been on a date in almost five years before Derry. The gay community, however, was full of men his age, many of whom were divorced from women and only recently coming to terms with it themselves. It made him feel a little less alone.

Currently, he was dating a guy a little older than him, bald and pierced, a professional tattoo artist in Brooklyn. They got along great and he laughed at all of Richie’s jokes, and the sex was amazing. Richie was still figuring out a lot about himself, and Jeff was a great guy to do it with. They weren’t exclusive by any means, but they had been seeing each other regularly for almost two months now, so soon it may be time to talk about it. Jeff had even come with him to dinner with Ben and Bev, a huge step, since he hadn’t introduced any of the guys he’d been seeing to any of the Losers yet. He had gotten on spectacularly with Ben specifically, two artsy types like that, and Bev had commented on how happy Richie seemed.

And he was happy. Much happier than he had ever been, probably. Still, he thought about Eddie all the time, and the heartbreak was real. Even Jeff had noticed, and mentioned in bed one night that Richie seemed hung up on his first love. He wasn’t offended, understanding as hell if anything, but the comment had unnerved Richie greatly.

Now, exactly six months since they had offed Pennywise, Richie was making the four hour drive upstate to spend Christmas at Bill’s place. It was Bill’s first Christmas since the divorce, and he didn’t want to spend it alone. Mike’s extended family lived in Derry, and he wasn’t in a hurry to go back even for a holiday visit. Richie was jewish, though typically he spent both the jewish and christian holidays alone since he didn’t speak much to his own family. So, the three of them decided unanimously a few months ago to spend the week together, drunk.

He was a bit torn now, though, because Jeff had invited him last minute to spend Christmas together, an event which definitely would have solidified their relationship status. He had panicked a bit at the invitation, though, and declined on grounds that he had already promised to spend it with friends. In reality, he wasn’t sure if he was ready to take such a big step yet. He would have to think about it and get back to him.

It had started to snow, light little flakes falling from the sky, when he pulled up to Bill’s place. It was an enormous house, an unbelievably lavish and pretentious place in the middle of the New York countryside. Bill had explained that he went a little overboard when he first started making serious money as a writer, and it showed. Bill had intended to one day have a bundle of kids to live there, but they had always been too busy to try for real to get pregnant. Eventually, especially towards the end of the marriage, it had become apparent to Bill that she didn’t really want kids after all, maybe only ever said she did to placate him. As a result, the house had a lot of rooms that were empty, recently transformed into more guest bedrooms.

Richie noticed as soon as he pulled up into the circular driveway that there was a nice, silver car parked there he didn’t recognize, and wondered who else was here. He grabbed his suitcase and made his way up to the front doors to press anxiously on the doorbell. To his surprise, it was Ben that opened the door. He was holding a glass of red wine.

“Hey, Rich!” He smiled brightly at him and Richie quirked an eyebrow, surprised to see him here, “Come on in!”

Richie toted his suitcase in and set it down, taking his snow-covered jacket off to hang it on the coat rack, “Hey, man... What are you doing here? I thought this was gonna be a, uh, single guy Christmas pity party.”

Mike appeared in the brightly lit foyer doorway that led to the living room, wearing a well knit and ugly Christmas sweater and toting his own drink, “I spoke to them last weekend and realized they didn’t have plans for Christmas either. Decided last minute that we should make this a Losers get together, I think it’s only right, huh?”

Richie nodded awkwardly, wishing he had been given a little bit of a heads up. It wasn’t that he disliked being around Ben and Bev, on the contrary, he loved it, but they got a little too head-over-heels lovey dovey from time to time, and Richie was, after all, here to commiserate with his single friends.

Ben set down his wine glass on the nearby table and hoisted Richie’s bag up easily, “I’ll take this to your room for you!”

He had a pinkness to his cheeks that Richie knew all too well. “Oookaay buddy. You a little drunk?”

Ben shrugged, still smiling, “A little.”

When Ben disappeared, Richie shot Mike a frown, “I could have used a little heads up, buddy. I love Ben and Bev but I need to prepare emotionally if I’m gonna be sleeping in the same love-shack.”

Mike laughed and put up a hand, “I told them to tone it down for the week. Sorry I didn’t tell you, I got a little caught up with other stuff. I also invited Eddie, I hope you don’t mind. He’ll be here soon I’m sure, he had some work stuff to finish up. I know you mentioned that you hadn’t seen him since Derry.”

Richie tried not to let the panic and shock of this news show on his face. He laughed a bit nervously.

“No, I don’t mind. I do mind that you guys started drinking without me,” Richie picked up Ben’s wine glass from where he had left it and chugged it, setting it back on the table empty when he was done. He didn’t even like red wine. Mike had an amused look on his face, and Richie had a sneaking suspicion he knew exactly what was going through his mind, “Won’t it be a little awkward to have Eds and his wife here? Might mess with the, uh, Loser flow.”

Mike crossed his arms, “You haven’t heard? Wow, you really haven’t talked to him much at all. They’re splitting up, he moved out of the house, maybe about a month ago.”

Richie must have looked shocked at this, he couldn’t control his face THAT well, “Oh. Great. I mean not great, that really sucks for him. God, I mean, it’s no secret that she sounded like a bit of a cunt, right?”

“Jesus, Richie,” Mike shook his head, but had a small disapproving smile, “Tell us how you really feel.”

“Well. As long as he doesn’t come in here all depressed and suicidal, I’m happy to have him,” Richie tried to shrug his reaction off and moved to walk with Mike into the living area, “Tell me Ben brought his dog here, at least.”

He had, and Richie found Ben’s kindly german shepherd mix hanging around Bill’s feet while he was cooking something delicious smelling in the huge kitchen. Richie really wasn’t sure why Bill didn’t just sell the house. It was too big for two people, let alone one, and he thought he would off himself if he had to live in a place he built for a spouse he no longer had. Bill, however, was nostalgic in ways Richie could never really understand. In the adjacent living area, Ben, Bev, and Mike were catching up while old-school stop motion Christmas movies played on the TV.

Richie poured himself a drink that was mostly vodka, before topping it off with a small layer of cranberry juice. He downed half of it before gesturing to the dog and speaking to Bill.

“How does Desdemona feel about this?” He asked.

A month after his ex-wife moved out, Bill had wandered over to his local animal shelter and adopted the most mangey, antisocial old batty cat he could find. She had full-on attacked Richie the first time he met her, giving him the most fright since Pennywise, easily. Since then, she had come around, and actually seemed to enjoy Richie’s company, but he strongly distrusted her. Bill, however, absolutely loved her and doted on her like a child.

Bill looked down at the dog panting and slobbering up at him, “Well, she’s completely disappeared, but Abby ignores cats so I’m sure once Des realizes, she’ll be fine.”

Richie knelt down, and Abby hopped over to him for some good ear scratches. “What a good girl you are, but I’m gonna need to to wrap up the good dog act and kill this cat. Trust me, she deserves is. Do it for your Uncle Richie.”

Bill shot him a dirty look but didn’t say anything. Richie re-filled his drink and walked over to see what he was cooking. Some sort of extravagant pasta dish with zucchini. Bill was a good cook, though in fairness he appeared to be good at everything from writing to playing piano to interior decorating to fucking zucchini pasta. His only personality fault was that his stuttering had come back since Derry, and Richie was grateful for it because, aside from being funny (which itself was arguable), it was the only thing he had over perfect-pretty-boy Bill.

“So,” He said after a few minutes and a few more sips of booze, “Bev and Ben, huh?”

“Mike’s idea, but I don’t mind it,” Bill said, not looking up, “The more the merrier.”

“You’re pretty good natured. You know, its okay to say it’s awkward.”

Bill had only seen Bev and Ben a few time since Derry, and never together until now. It was a little tense, a little awkward. Bill insisted that Bev hadn’t been the reason he was divorcing Audra, that was a long time coming, but it was obvious that their reuniting had been the final straw that gave him the confidence to do so.

Bill looked at him, slightly annoyed, “Okay, maybe it’s a little awkward, only because she kissed me like two days before they got together. But I’m happy they’re together, really. Really, Richie. He’s obviously exactly what she needs right now.”

He knew what he meant. While Bill’s divorce had been tense, it was still mostly amicable. Bev’s divorce, though they didn’t talk about it much, had been notoriously brutal and messy. Ben had helped her hire a good lawyer, because the dude had a TEAM of good lawyers and had been relentless. Bev had to go as far as putting an order of protection on the guy, because at one point he was straight up stalking her. Richie didn’t know the details, just some allusions to an incident in a hotel room and the police getting called.

“That’s okay man,” Richie sipped at his drink, his mind finally feeling the effects, “I had a real weird interaction with Eddie last time I saw him, so maybe this will be a weird week for all of us.”

Bill started chopping mushrooms and quirked his head at him, “What happened?”

Almost on queue, the doorbell rang and Richie nearly jumped out of his skin. He frowned and said, too quickly, “Long story. I’ll tell you about it later. I gotta go to the bathroom.”

In the bathroom, he wished desperately that he had known about this ahead of time. Maybe then he would have cut his hair, or worn an outfit that wasn’t so shabby. He had to look better than the last time he saw Eddie, at least. Not covered head to toe in mud and horrific bruising. His heart was pounding with nerves, and as always when he thought about Eds these days, he was a little angry. He pulled out his phone and shot a text to Jeff:

Hey, thinking about you. Wish you were here.

He tried to focus on Jeff instead of Eddie. Jeff, who actually liked him. Jeff, who actually liked MEN for God’s sake. There was no point hovering around the possibility of getting together with Eddie. Eddie himself had said he wasn’t interested, had said he didn’t mean to lead him on. Briefly, he considered feigning an emergency to get out of this. But he realized all at once that he did want to be here, with his friends. He could do this. He was sure that if he just acted cordial with Eddie, things could go back to normal. Friends. He wanted that, right?

He took a few deep breaths and went back out into the living area.

Eddie looked good, there was no other way to say it. Maybe it was because they weren’t in the process of fighting a killer clown, but he seemed relaxed, smiling huge at Ben and Bev as they spoke with him elatedly. His hair was a little longer, clothes a bit less formal, and the bags under his eyes not quite as deep set. Richie clutched at his phone in his pants pocket and realized how difficult this was gonna be. He panicked and, instead of heading into the living room, he went back into the kitchen where Bill was.

“Is Eddie here?” Bill asked. Richie grunted affirmative and reached back for the bottle of vodka. He took a swig by itself straight from the bottle. Bill watched him carefully, “That bad huh?”

“I’m fine. Just not drunk enough.”

Bill reached a hand out and took the bottle, taking a swig himself and making a face. Richie smirked at him, and Billy smirked back before speaking in a low voice, “He’s doing really good. Stopped taking all the medication and started going to Therapy instead.”

Richie’s head was a renewed kind of fuzzy, “Well, I’m happy for him.” And he was, he wasn’t just saying that. Richie was happy for Eddie, he just wasn’t very happy to be here right now.

He went back to the living room, avoiding Eddie’s look though he felt it drilling a hole in the side of his skull with a burning intensity, and sat down on the couch next to Mike. The more the booze kicked in, the bolder he got as far as looking at Eddie went, and they met gazes a few times. Eddie gave him a few looks that were apologetic, and Richie just looked away and listened instead. Based on the conversation, Bill was right. Eddie told them that he had stopped taking all of his medication, replaced instead with a heavy dose of brand new anti-anxiety shit, which he probably should have been taking all along. They all snorted and agreed. Despite this, he was his energetic and snarky self. The conversation wore on for another ten minutes, with Richie contributing rarely. Soon it became obvious to everyone that something was wrong; not because Richie was being rude, but because he WASN’T being rude.

“Are you okay, Rich?” Bev asked, hand on his knee. The others watched him closely.

He laughed and tapped the side of his head, “Yeah, I have a headache. Must be coming down with something, migraine all day.”

They believed that, and for the most part left him alone. Only Eddie didn’t seem convinced, still shooting him looks that he casually avoided. Eventually dinner was ready, and they ate while watching Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer and poking fun at the stupid plot. Richie relaxed a little, as the warmth of company and food and alcohol flushed his body, and he was able to contribute a little more. Still, when it was socially acceptable to do so, he excused himself and his fake headache and went to his room. He figured he might have to take Eddie in small doses until he got used to it.

He sat on his bed and sighed, rubbing his eyes under his glasses. He kicked off his shoes and laid back on the bed, staring at the ceiling for a good long while. In his semi-drunk state the room spun a little bit, and it made him feel nauseous. He grabbed his phone and looked at it. A new text from Jeff had come in maybe ten minutes ago:

Missing you, too. How are things up there? Been snowing cats and dogs, power went out on the whole street. Wish you were here so we could entertain ourselves.

Richie smirked and put his phone away. He felt a little bit better. He got up and took some headache medication for real out of his bag, knowing it would help stave off a hangover in the morning that he was sure to have. Though he drank often, it never really agreed with him. He went into the attached bathroom, which shared a door with another guest bedroom, and took the pills with some water from the sink. He started getting undressed so he could sleep when he felt cool fluff against his leg. He jumped and looked down, seeing Desdemona the cat looking up at him. She was an old white persian cat, with a face so flat that her nose typically crusted with snot and her eyes with watery tears. She had almost no teeth, and stuck her tongue out just a little, which made her drool an incredible amount. It was no wonder to him that she was grumpy all the time, she was ugly as sin.

“Get back, you little bitch,” He hissed, lifting his leg out of her reach. She rubbed against the other one instead, and he eyed her suspiciously before she slank off into his room. How she got in this room in the first place, he didn’t know. Maybe Ben let her in when he brought his bag up. He knew better than to try and get her to leave if she didn’t want to, though.

He brushed his teeth and went back in, finding the cat curled into a ball on one of his pillows. He left the door to his room open a crack so she could leave when she wanted to and turned off the light, heading to bed. He laid his head next to her and tried to pretend she wasn’t there. Despite himself, her soft purring mixed with exhaustion from the long drive and the booze, which lured him to sleep almost immediately. His dreams were full of memories again.

-

Despite how clear the memories of being thirteen were getting, most of the Losers stayed in Derry until they were eighteen and left for college. Those memories, the years after Pennywise, were more and more fuzzy in his head and, he assumed, everyone else’s. Despite being defeated for the moment, the clown wasn’t dead, and his power had a strong hold over the town in that it could convince bad people to do worse things, and good people to turn their heads the other way. Convince them to forget or ignore it, like a mist of deception and self-assured ignorance. This power, it seemed, was most prevalent in adults. But teenagers, naturally bad people anyway, certainly weren’t immune. Henry Bowers was as good of an example of that as anything.

So, the older they got, the more blurry things seemed to get as the mist of Derry settled over them. In wasn’t until they got away from Derry that the haze seemed to clear, the memories faded into nothing, and they were able to live semi-normal lives. Still, this explained why they had reverted back and away from the lessons they had learned in Derry. It was difficult, now, looking back and being able to pinpoint the things that, if they had remembered then, may have helped them be better people in adulthood.

Still, they had lived four more years in Derry. Most of them, anyway. Beverly had gone to Portland and, despite attempts to stay in contact, forgot them and they never heard or saw her again until now. It was just as well that it had turned out that way, because as soon as the Losers entered high school they slowly started to fracture as the memories of Pennywise seemed more and more like a distant nightmare.

Mike was finally able to stop being homeschooled, and flourished with popularity in High School despite the general aura of outright racism that haunted Derry even on its best days. He joined the football team, and before they knew it, started speaking to the group less and less. Bill too gained some ground as he grew into his looks, and girls flocked to him; handsome AND nice. By their senior year, he was class president of Derry High, and though he still spoke to the others out of kindness, didn’t spend much time with them.

Stan didn’t flourish with popularity by any means, but somehow ended up friends with older, just graduated kids who invited him to parties outside of Derry. The draw of forgetting lured him as such that he spent almost no time in Derry at all, if he could help it. Eddie, newly freed from the idea that he was sick with illness and asthma, joined the track team mostly so he could avoid going home to his mom at the end of the day. It was exactly the ‘in’ he needed with the sporty kids, and despite trying his best to see Richie and the others, fell in with the jock crowd and gravitated away from the Losers.

Richie and Ben ended up spending the most time together because, upon being introduced to video games, Ben actually found he enjoyed them. On the other end, Ben introduced Richie to good music, which he listened to a wide array of. Though pop stuff and boy bands never floated his boat, Richie enjoyed deeply the hard-core punk music that Ben had showed him. Ben remained chubby through high school, invisible if he wasn’t being bullied, and Richie was right alongside him as a social reject. Richie didn’t do good in school due to generally being a class clown and struggles with schoolwork that would later in life be diagnosed as pretty severe ADHD. As a result, he spent a lot of time in detention and no time in the so-called fulfilling life of extra curricular activities. Over time, even Richie and Ben began to talk less and less, as Richie fell in with the other burnout kids and discovered the calm of smoking weed behind the school bleachers.

This particular memory, one of the only ones he remembered with any kind of clarity, happened towards the end of his junior year of high school. It was raining that day, so Richie wanted to say it was April, but he couldn’t be sure. He had left home early in the morning due to another night of fitful nightmares of clowns and floating bodies. By now, memories of what had happened when they were thirteen had faded into childrens overactive imaginations and the occasional dream, but when he had nights like this, he could never really shake it. He felt like everything was off, felt angry that his childhood friends didn’t talk to him anymore. The scar on his hand ached as he walked to school, and he felt the sharp pain of broken bonds.

He stood under the bleachers, trying to get out of the rain even though it was falling very lightly, and smoked a cigarette. The school wasn’t open yet, but the track team met early on spring mornings to do some warm up jogging around the football field. Richie huddled under his too-big thrift store leather jacket and watched Eddie running between two girls, talking hurriedly at them and laughing at their jokes. They all wore running shorts and jackets, their voices coming into the cool morning in puffs of steam. Richie found it unfair that he was here, under the burn-out bleachers making himself sick with nicotine while Eds flowered with popularity and good looks.

Between the raw emotion of his terrifying dreams, and the aggressive thoughts coming over him of betrayal and loneliness, Richie was shaking with anger by the time the track team finished their run and decided to head back into the locker rooms to get ready for school. He stomped out his cigarette and left the bleachers, walking past the field and back towards the school. Between the main building and another, smaller building where they held English classes, was a tall staircase jammed between the two in what created a cramped alleyway. Richie leaned against the wall here and waited. He knew that Eddie would have to come this way to get to his homeroom class, because they had had the same homeroom at the beginning of the year before Richie was transferred to the morning class especially for kids who were flunking and needed extra tutoring.

He was wringing his hands and finally decided on just giving Eddie a piece of his mind, telling him off, telling him to go fuck himself with his high-and-mighty jock bullshit. A part of him knew it was wrong, knew that he shouldn’t be this angry. Maybe even back then he was trying to fight against the affect Pennywise had on the residents of Derry. He was still going back and forth on it when Eddie showed up.

He turned the corner down the alleyway and up the stairs. Richie looked at the ground and let his anger resonate, but had finally decided that he didn’t have the nerve, and he wasn’t gonna do this. To his surprise, though, Eddie walked up to him and stopped in front of him.

“Hey, Richie,” He said brightly. Richie looked up at him and Eds made a face, “Ugh, have you been smoking? You smell like an ashtray.”

It was a back and forth like they used to have, not so much anymore, and the fact he just approached so casually frustrated him. He pulled another cigarette out of his jacket pocket, despite the fact it was dangerous to smoke this close to school grounds, and lit it while still making eye contact with Eddie. He took a long puff and blew it into the other boys face.

“Yeah,” He said finally, “What do you care? We aren’t friends.”

Eddie took a step back and rolled his eyes, “Gross, Richie. No need to be a dickhead.”

He snorted and looked away, up the stairs, keeping an eye out for anyone that could catch him smoking and get him in trouble, “I’m just minding my own business. Why don’t you leave me alone?”

He could feel Eddie examining him, and finally looked back at him. He had an unimpressed look on his face that infuriated Richie even more.

“I don’t think you really like smoking,” The smaller boy huffed, “I think you just do it to fit in with your dipshit friends. But you don’t look as cool as you think you do.”

Richie kicked off the wall and closed the distance between him, puffing another exhale of smoke into his face. Eddie waved a hand between them and coughed aggressively. Richie’s mouth quirked, “Sorry, am I aggravating your asthma?”

“Fuck off, asshole,” Eds growled, turning to leave. But Richie grabbed his arm and threw him against the opposite wall, closing in on him. Eddie’s eyes widened. These days, Richie had a full foot of height on him and this close, looking down, he could see that he was having an effect of intimidation. He almost enjoyed it, but he was seething with rage.

He put his cigarette out against the brick right next to Eddies head, letting the hot ashes crumble down onto Eddie’s nice coat shoulder, “Don’t start a fight with me you can’t finish.”

Eddie pushed on his chest, and Richie stumbled back despite himself, dropping the cigarette butt. Eddie brushed the ashes off his shoulder and jammed a finger in his direction, “I tried being your friend, Richie. It’s not my fault you’re a fucking wasted future drop-out.”

Richie punched him. He had been feeling it build this whole time, but he was still surprised when he actually did it. Eddie dropped instantly to the ground, crumpling as Richie’s fist met his jaw. He had to have lost consciousness for a second, but soon his wild eyes were open, staring at Richie in disbelief as he covered his face with his hands. Richie turned on his heel and left, marching up the stairs and trying to get far away from here, his heart slamming in his ribcage.


End file.
